2020 might have been a tough year due to the pandemic but it also led to the immense growth of various social media platforms, especially Instagram. But even now there are several brands and small businesses who are hesitant about creating an account on Instagram and showcasing their work.
If you want to know more about the benefits of expanding and promoting your business on Instagram, then here are some statistics that will help you get acquainted with the current trends and preferences of the active users on the platform so you can direct more traffic to your brand and increase sales through Instagram in no time!
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How many active users does Instagram have?
2021 has been a pretty good year for Instagram as it reached a new milestone and broke all its previous records of total users. Although Instagram registered a huge 22.9 percent increase in user count in the year 2020, it crossed the 1 billion mark in the year 2021. Experts believed that Instagram would reach this milestone in the year 2024 but the recent pandemic helped it gain popularity. After its inception in 2010, Instagram took only 10 years to get a user base of 1.074 billion. With this Instagram has joined the club of networking websites with over a billion users and has become one of the most popular social media marketing websites available in the market right now.
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It’s famous among the younger lot
Instagram has become an integral part of the life of people from Gen Z and Gen Y (millennials). So much so, 66 percent of generation Z and 50 percent of millennials use Instagram daily with more than one-third stating that it is their favourite social networking site out of the lot. Out of the users from the two genders, women came out on top with 50.9 percent. Also, it was found that 14.5 percent of the global active Instagram users were women between the ages of 18 to 24 years while 50 percent of the total Instagram user base is aged 34 and below. So if you’re looking for a social media platform to target people from Gen Y and Gen Z then Instagram is the perfect place to do so.
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Average follower count
According to a recent study, a whopping 69.9 percent of Instagram users have less than 1,000 followers while just 1.6 percent of users have a follower count of 500,000 and above! It’s because most of the users just share images and videos with their friends and family and not everyone is aiming to become an Instagram influencer. An Instagrammer’s popularity depends on the followers and following ratio rather than his/her follower count. Once you have more than 50,000 followers and followers to following ratio of more than 10, you can call yourself an influencer. If the value of that ratio lies anywhere between 2 to 10 then you will be called a micro-influencer. Some of the brands can’t even reach this level so they turn to influencers and micro-influencers to promote their products. You can even increase your followers count by buying instagram followers some of the best trusted sites.
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Indian engagement on the platform
After the United States, India is the second country with the most Instagram users in the world. Out of these 120 million users, 72.5 percent are men and the remaining 27.5 percent are women. Due to these astounding figures and the fact that India was one of the first countries to ban TikTok, it became the first market where the Instagram Reels feature was released after Brazil and acquired most of TikTok’s user base. In December 2020, Instagram Lite was launched which is a small and fast Android version for the app for people with limited data access. It offered content in several Indian languages like Hindi, Bangla, Gujarati, Malayalam, and many more to make Instagram easily accessible to every person in India.
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Niches with the highest engagement
You might be of the opinion that this photo-sharing platform thrives solely on aesthetic clicks but you’ll be surprised to know that 91% of the total users use the platform to follow and get updates in niches or fields they’re interested in like music (44%), food and drinks (43%), travel (45%) and several others. With different age groups inclining towards different interests, with the growing interest of Indians in technology being a highlight in all the metrics, while users from Argentina, Korea, Turkey, and Brazil choosing films as their top interest. So if you still haven’t found your niche then it’s high time you do so and cater to a targeted audience to get higher engagement on Instagram and grow your business or brand without spending a fortune.
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Professional growth on Instagram
If you’re still having second thoughts regarding expanding your business online and promoting it via Instagram, these statistics will help you decide. Currently, there are over 25 million brands on this photo-sharing platform with over 200 million visiting at least one business profile every day and 90% of the users following at least one brand on Instagram. When it comes to advertising, Instagram stories tend to steal the show with almost one-third of the viewers swiping up on branded stories and brands make sure to keep their followers engaged and happy by posting creative, unique, and funny content and hosting giveaways and contests on a regular basis to create brand awareness without spending huge amounts on billboards and other traditional marketing tricks.
This is just a glimpse of how businesses fare on Instagram and anyone will agree that things have been exceptionally great for brands who use it wisely. With so many exceptional features and updates being rolled out on the platform every year, it won’t be wrong to say that it will be one of the most instrumental platforms for small businesses and brands to promote their work so make an Instagram account and take your business to greater heights with a little creativity and efforts!
